


it's always ourselves we find in the sea

by iskra (kiira)



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: (i spell it elle?? oops??), F/F, suicide cw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 11:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2649770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiira/pseuds/iskra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>somehow you are more human than monster<br/>(carmilla goes to find the sword)</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's always ourselves we find in the sea

There are old stories (older than you) of the water that absolves sin; a thousands oceans could not clean your soul and sometimes you dream of going to Hell.

You are ancient and you do not hold religion as truth in your hollow heart, but your childhood a thousand suns ago taught you to bow your head to an unforgiving God, to hold your mouth open to accept his body and his blood (shed for you, amen), to kneel and hold yourself as his child, his servant.

(Your childhood stories told you _thou shalt not kill_ and you shall.)

//

It was a mistake to not tell her, but you lied to yourself, because maybe she would be safer this way, and maybe it was all a nightmare.

You had this dream before, the blurring, screaming, overwhelming horror of Mother stealing Laura, of Laura being sliced and broken and hung like an angel from the rafters, and sometimes your own terror smears onto Laura and you don’t know where the memories stop and the panic sets in.

Laura told you to leave, and you just left, walked out into the night and you thought she was different, you thought she looked at you and saw the girl (Elle looked at you and saw the monster.)

(Laura sees the monster now too; it just took her longer.)

You don’t know where you’re going, you’re blind with fear and betrayal and anger (at her, at yourself, maybe it’s the same thing) and you’re at the train station.

//

 _“_ Carmilla?” She gets quiet late at night, asks you things when she’s sure she won’t be able to see your face when you answer (she’s afraid to pity you). “Carmilla, can you die?”

And you choke on a laugh, choke on your response because you don’t know, _you don’t know_.

(You do know what won’t kill you.)

(Drowning, hanging, gunshot wounds – to the head, stomach, heart –, jumping, starvation, the list goes on and on and on.)

There’s a slight rusting, and Laura’s standing by your bed and her eyes are soft with something you cannot name. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and so are you.

//

The train ride is hours, and you are locked in a box. They are trembling hours, hours where you press your palms into your eyes and try not to remember the feeling of warm blood on your skin. It is daylight outside, you think, and you spend what could be hours more scouring the edges of the train car for pinpricks of light. 

(There are none, and maybe you are in a coffin.)

But finally the train screeches to a halt, and you are still miles from the sea but you claw your way out (and it feels like rebirth).

You stand on a hill somewhere in Slovenia, burning in the sun and somehow you are more human than monster.

//

You almost fell in love in 1963. Her name was Claire and she was beautiful and passionate and she would hold your hand almost constantly. It was chance you met; she was an exchange student from France, a psychology major, and this time around you were a chemistry major and you literally walked into her coming out of the student center.

“Oh!” She gasped, “ _Excusez-moi,_ ” and French wasn’t something you had let yourself hear since Mother had taken you back, stolen you back on that rooftop in Paris a decade ago.

“ _Ah, non, ça va_ ,” you respond, and she looks surprised. It’s easy to slip back into French, and she’s easy to talk to, easy to kiss, easy to fool yourself into thinking you love.

She never learns who you are, you never cry in her arms in the early hours of the morning. Everytime you open your mouth to let a glimpse of sin fall out, all you can see is Elle’s horrified face and her broken neck and your words die.

Claire moves back to France and you mourn what could have been.

//

 It takes three more days to get to the ocean, and you haven’t walked this far since you broke your way free of the earth.

(Those days are a hazy collage of blood and limbs and a terrifying, paralyzing silence. That is the one thing that you are grateful for: you do not know, will never know, the sounds of thousands screaming as they die.)

You know that the sword is deep below the water; you know that you cannot drown; you know that you are not a hero.

You know you have no other choice.

//

Laura looks at you sometimes, and you wonder if she maybe loves you too. She looks at you like she somehow _understands_ and you don’t know how this nineteen-year-old innocent could ever begin to comprehend the horror that flutters where your heart should be.

(She can look at you like your hands never took a life, and all at once you are eighteen and real.)

//

You have eight degrees in philosophy, three in English literature, two in mathematics and logic, and one in chemistry. You have studied thirteen languages and speak eleven fluently, have read thousands upon thousands of books, spoken with artists and politicians and philosophers, musicians and writers and leaders and you still have no words to describe what happened to you before you were shut into the earth, bathed in the blood of innocents.

(You do not think there are words for the pain you felt; you died dancing and were slaughtered in love.)

//

The first step into the water is cold, which is the only thing that keeps you going. (Blood is warm, warm and silk and lovely, and the sea is like ice; your dead skin nearly shivers.)

There is salvation in the water closing over your head, and you take a breath because down to your bones, you will be human to your end.

( _You are not a monster_ , the water whispers in your ears, fills your mouth and nose and lungs, _you are whole_ )

It is dark but it does not suffocate you. It is soft, slipping between your fingers and you cannot cry, you cannot; and perhaps you are a silly girl with too many, too few, words and too much horror, but this darkness feels like forgiveness.

The sword is easy to find, almost too easy and its hilt burns into your palm; all you can see is Elle’s face as you tell her of your death, Laura’s as you tell her of Elle.

The water breaks over your head and you gasp for air; it fills your dead, useless lungs. There is an echo of a heartbeat in your ears, and you know (for these precious few moments) that hope is not done.


End file.
